A comprehensive and engaging introduction to the place and power of colour in life and art by John Gage, author of the award-winning Colour and Culture. The complex phenomenon of colour has received detailed attention from the perspectives of physics, chemistry, physiology, psychology, linguistics and philosophy. However, the people who work most closely with colour, the artists, have rarely been consulted for their views on this mysterious subject.

John Gage sets out to address this omission by focusing on the thoughts and practices of artists. Colour in Art is concerned with the history of colour, but is not itself a history; instead, each chapter develops a theme from a different scientific discipline, seen from the point of view of artists as diverse as Wassily Kandinsky, Vincent van Gogh, Sonia Delaunay, Bridget Riley and Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri. Drawing on examples across the centuries, from antiquity to the present, the many topics covered include flags, synaesthesia, Theosophy, theatrical design, film, chromotherapy and chromophobia.

With a new foreword by art writer Kelly Grovier describing contemporary developments in the study of colour, and an updated bibliography, this new edition of this classic text offers a wide-ranging and engaging introduction to the place and power of colour in life and art.

Publisher: Thames and Hudson